FABRICATIONS: New and Selected Poems (1998) by Lane Jennings

“Sometimes, its all instinctive,

you react like predator to prey–

pounce and possess. But such

lust-quenching seldom satisfies [….]”

from Romance, pg 44 in FABRICATIONS

FABRICATIONS offers selected poems that represent 30 years of writing—from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s. Here you will find themes and treatments typical of a young man’s life experiences [high school (“Graduation Night”), early love (“Angela”), encounters overseas (“Athens After Dark,” “Berlin Assignment”) etc.], but also tributes and memorials (“Ex-Scholar Gone to War,” “One for Bill”), invocations to the powers of creation (“Music”), and even a practical piece of low-yield consumer magic (“Charm for Locating a Parking Space Downtown”).

Lane Jennings may have been born into an America at very peak of its pride and confidence (“Early Years”), but he is also a poet who revers the classic past (“Retired Hero,” “Hector’s Victory”) and speculates on worlds that might emerge in years to come (“Fabrications”). You’ll find here humor, too; some of it pointed (“To His Cool Mistress,” “The Penguin’s Ball”), and some of it delightful nonsense (“When Superman Grows Old,” “Chicago Piano”).

All in all, FABRICATIONS lays out a smorgasbord of verse to comfort, teach, and entertain—a sampler from the vast range of lyric possibilities.